Taunton teen electrocuted on the job dies in dad's arms

A city teenager died after being electrocuted at a construction site in Marshfield where he was working with his father Wednesday afternoon.

By Kyle Alspach and Sydney Schwartz

A city teenager died after being electrocuted at a construction site in Marshfield where he was working with his father Wednesday afternoon.

Jim Whittemore, 17, was helping his father and several other workers take down aluminum scaffolding at the Royal Dane Condominiums about 2 p.m., when a pole he was holding fell on a high-voltage electrical wire.

“Both of our hands were on it. It killed him, but it didn't touch me,” said his father, Bill Whittemore, who fought back tears while speaking by phone Wednesday night. “I think he died right there in my arms.”

Jim had spent the summer alongside his father, working for the family business, Whittemore Construction, and was saving to buy a BMW, his father said. He would have turned 18 in a few weeks, on Aug. 17.

Jim was an honor roll student and captain of the varsity soccer team at Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical High School, where he took part in the welding program and would have been a senior next year, his father said. Jim aspired to go to college to become an engineer, but he also wanted to continue his favorite hobby: Go-kart racing.

“We used to travel the whole country for races,” Bill Whittemore said.

Jim even won several go-kart championships, his father said.

There were no funeral plans as of Wednesday night. In addition to his father, Jim leaves his mother, Lisa; his 21-year-old brother, Tom; and his 20-year-old sister, Ashley.

The tragedy occurred just as Whittemore Construction had finished putting up siding on a building at the condo complex, located off Route 139.

The teen was holding up a pole to keep it steady as his father and another worker took it down, said a resident of the building.

“He was balancing it. Eventually, they just lost balance,” said the resident, Loretto Melone.

Melone said a worker on the roof was yelling down, “Watch out for the wire. Watch out for the wire.” He said he heard a crash and then heard the boy's father, Bill Whittemore, yelling to call an ambulance.

“He was frantic. He gave him mouth-to-mouth,” Melone said. “They couldn't revive him.”

Fire Chief Jim Robinson said the Marshfield building commissioner and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating the accident.

Diane Marobella, a resident of the condo complex, said she met Bill and Jim last week while they were working.

The father “was very proud of his son when we met him,” Marobella said.